Osceola Woman Is Charged In Son's Poisoning Death

Sheriff's Investigators Arrested Maria Argentine After She Was Released From A Hospital.

October 1, 1998|By Lenny Savino of The Sentinel Staff

KISSIMMEE - A mother suspected of poisoning her 4-year-old son and then overdosing herself was arrested and charged with the boy's death Wednesday.

Maria Argentine, 38, was arrested by Osceola County sheriff's investigators after her release from Celebration Hospital. Her son, Anthony James Argentine, was found dead Saturday morning in a motel room near Kissimmee.

Argentine is charged with an open count of murder, meaning a grand jury will determine whether the act was premeditated and what degree of murder she will be charged with, detectives said. She was booked into the Osceola County Jail with no bond.

Argentine was in a bitter custody dispute with her estranged husband over the child, and notes found in the hotel room, thought to have been written by her, indicate she planned to poison the child and then herself, detectives said. She was found near death in a breezeway near the motel office.

Last Wednesday, a judge had ordered that Anthony live temporarily with his aunt and uncle in St. Cloud so his father, Craig, 33, could visit him. His mother had kept the pair apart for more than two months. By the time the order was signed and his father went to pick him up Friday at his Kenansville home, Anthony was already at the Travelodge East Gate Orange with his mother.

Shortly after filing for divorce in November 1995, Argentine began saying that her husband was molesting their son. Craig Argentine, an auto mechanic, vigorously denies this, and investigators never substantiated the allegations.

Her friends, however, remain loyal to a woman they describe as a devoted friend and a hard worker who tended to her cancer-stricken mother before being orphaned as a teenager.

``I want people to know that she was a good mom and that kid loved being with her,'' said Karen Venuto, a cousin. ``She always felt the courts didn't stick up for her.''

The Argentine case is far from unique. In January, Kissimmee mother Rachel Gonzalez was charged with shooting her 2- and 4-year-old daughters in the head. Prosecutors speculate that financial woes fueled the killing.

Indiana mother Donna Brown was sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty to smothering her 3- and 5-year-old daughters in a motel near Kissimmee in 1993. She said she thought the girls were being molested and that she was trying to protect them.